The New Hampshire Executive Council approved funding for a new crisis center at Riverbend Community Health in Concord.

Credit Allegra Boverman for NHPR

The Executive Council has approved a $4.4 million contract to fund a new behavioral health crisis treatment center.

The contract, awarded to Riverbend Community Health, will fund a 24/7 crisis center in Concord. It will provide short-term treatment to stabilize patients before connecting them with community mental health resources.

Riverbend CEO Peter Evers says the center will be an alternative to emergency rooms for first responders dropping off someone in a mental health crisis.

“Although people do get treated in the emergency department, it’s not the best place for someone in psychiatric crisis to be,” said Evers. “I think one of the things that happens across the state is that people end up boarded in the emergency department and they actually get worse in some cases because they’re not getting where they need and they’re essentially waiting for care.”

The hope is that the new center will help reduce the number of psychiatric patients currently being boarded in hospital emergency departments.

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The New Hampshire Hospital Association has moved to intervene in a lawsuit against the state brought by the ACLU-NH.

The lawsuit addresses the current practice of emergency room boarding, where patients who are involuntarily committed for acute psychiatric treatment are sometimes held for weeks in emergency rooms without a probable cause hearing.